currently doing partime undergraduate course in Mathematics: Is it worth it.

OBRIENT

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Am currently doing partime undergraduate course in mathematics.

It is tough going and am beginning to think is it going to be worth it.

Working in banking at the moment and most of the stuff I am learning will probably never get use.

The main reason i choose maths was to mainly to make myself more employable and maybe change career paths down the line.

Thought about business studies but I feel people withthese degrees are 10 to a penny like a lot of building tradesmen .

Looked at maths as more of a specialist area.
 
Re: Mathematics is it worth it.

Worked in banking as a mathematician/statistician for more years than I care to remember. These subjects are not widely used or highly valued in banking - there were very few of us in a very large bank. Unless you deliberately set out to acquire a range of banking skills, you will reach a glass ceiling very quickly - your role will always be an advisory one rather than an executive one.

I cannot recall a single recruitment of a person with high numerate skills into that bank in recent years, although I do believe that such skills have the potential to make a very valuable contribution in a variety of areas, and particularly in areas of modelling of risks.

I am aware that banks on continental Europe do use mathematical approaches to a much greater extent than do Irish and UK banks. Have a look at my site [broken link removed]
 
Re: Mathematics is it worth it.


Thanks Gulliver-modelling of risks is the area I would like to develop in and is one of the the main reasons I took on mathematics and also to have a back up given the current economic climate especially in banking.. So you reckon it is a good choice?.
 
Its useful in specialised areas of computer programming. I'd assume financial software, games, encryption etc.
 
Banks don't develop much software now and certainly none with math content

Maybe you're right. I do know a few programmers in banks and I've done a bit of stuff for financial type companies myself. Very little maths in what I did. But I kinda meant software companies themselves. For example...

[broken link removed]
 
Today's Irish Times has some articles about this - its [broken link removed]!
 
OBRIENT,

I was just wondering where you are doing your course at the moment

Shakeydude